Macdonald, haggard and dusty, and grim as the last day that old Mark Thorn had pictured for himself, pushed his prisoner away from the chimney, out of reach of the rifle, and indicated that he was to march for the open door, through which the tables in the dining-room could be seen. At Macdonald's coming Chadron had thrown his hand to his revolver, where he still held it, as if undecided how far to go. "Keep your gun where it is, Chadron," Macdonald advised. "This isn't my day for you. Clear out of here--quick!" Chadron backed toward the front door, his hand still dubiously on his revolver. Still suspicious, his face as white as it would have been in death, he reached back with his free hand to open the door. "I told you he'd git me," nodded Thorn, with something near to exultation in the vindication of his reading of the cards. "I give you a chance--no man's money ain't a-goin' to shut my mouth now!" "I'll shut it, damn you!" Chadron's voice was dry-sounding and far up in his throat. He drew his revolver with a quick jerk that seemed nothing more than a slight movement of the shoulder. Quick as he was--and few in the cattlemen's baronies were ahead of him there--Macdonald was quicker. The muzzle of Chadron's pistol was still in the leather when Macdonald's weapon was leveled at his eyes. "Drop that gun!" A moment Chadron's arm hung stiffly in that half-finished movement, while his eyes gave defiance. He had not bent before any man in many a year of growing power. But there was no other way; it was either bend or break, and the break would be beyond repair. Chadron's fingers were damp with sudden sweat as he unclasped them from the pistol-butt and let the weapon fall; sweat was on his forehead, and a heaviness on his chest as if a man sat on him. He felt backwards through the open door with one foot, like an old man distrustful of his limbs, and steadied himself with his shoulder against the jamb, for there was a trembling in his knees. He knew that he had saved himself from the drop into eternal inconsequence by the shading of a second, for there was death in dusty Alan Macdonald's face. The escape left Chadron shaken, like a man who has held himself away from death by his finger-ends at the lip of a ledge. "I knowed you'd git me, Macdonald," Thorn repeated. "You don't need no handcuffs nor nothin' for me. I'll go along with you as gentle as a fish." Macdonald indicated that Thorn might lower his arms, having taken possession of the rifle. "Have you got a horse?" he asked. Thorn said that he had one in the hotel stable. "But don't you try to take me too fur, Macdonald," he advised. "Chadron he'll ride a streak to git his men together and try to take me away from you--I could see it in his eye when he went out of that door." Macdonald knew that Thorn had read Chadron's intentions right. He nodded, to let him know that he understood the cattleman's motives.